Priming The Walls For Paint

January 16, 2019January 24, 2019 / daughterofafarmer / Leave a comment

An important step to painting the walls is the prep! After taking down all the curtains, I lightly sanded over the holes. When you take the screws out it pulls up the wood a bit, so if you go over with sandpaper it will smooth it out. Then take a little bit of wood putty and fill in the hole. If you wipe over the hole with either your finger or a paper towel, then you don’t have to go back and sand over each hole. At the end of the day, it’s an old camper and it doesn’t have to be perfect – which is easier said than done if you are a perfectionist like me 😉

This step isn’t necessary, you can hang things up or put curtains back in the same spots if you don’t want to fill in the holes

What is necessary though! Is wiping down the walls and making sure they are clean and free of dust from sanding. You won’t want to use anything that will leave behind a residue. So the vinegar mixture would be good, or my personal favorite is Shaklee’s H2 cleaner. It’s an organic – all purpose cleaner that doesn’t leave behind chemicals or residue (which means my kiddos can help clean. win. win)

Once you have your walls ready, you’ll want to do a coat of primer. I used Kilz Primer. It has a mildew resistant layer which is nice in a camper. You can brush it on or use a small foam roller. I’ll add some links at the bottom of this page so you can see what tools I used

There are a lot of different options for primers, I just happened to have a gallon of this on hand and I read good things about it for campers

This step sure doesn’t look pretty, but it really brightens it up already! I can wait to get the actual paint rolled on!!

Here’s what I used:

Kilz Primer

My favorite brush (seriously, gotta have one of these)

Wooster Brush

paint tray and roller

I like this wood filler because it turns white when it’s dry

A sand block makes it easy to go over all the screw holes or died putty. Plus the handle is nice and squishy 😉 you can buy sandpaper already cut to size, or cut down large sheets to fit.

Tack Cloths are also nice to have on hand if you have to do a lot of sanding

Demo Of The Ceiling

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 / daughterofafarmer / 1 Comment

Here’s where things get a little more complicated. In the back of the camper there was a leak. I’m sure it leaked way before I bought it… However, I had the camper stored outside at the farm for a while over winter. It was in a plastic hoop building and the snow got so heavy, it collapsed the building. This resulted in a metal pipe puncturing the roof (cue the face palm) andddd some more water got it.

Anyways, it is what it is. The ceiling is going to be a huge project. I started ripping into it to see what all I need to do

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Ugh. It’s a mess a know. I was half tempted to call it quits at this point, feeling way in over my head. But some conversations with my Dad and Grandpa reassured me it can be fixed.

I highly recommend getting a scrapper like this. I found this one at my local restore, but there is a pretty similar one on Amazon. It works like a charm for scraping all the loose wallpaper loose and the broken paneling. I use it for odd jobs all the time in there

If you’ve done work on a camper or RV ceiling let me know! This is all new to me and I’m just winging it! haha Now to figure out how to put the wood back up…! Since the ceiling has a curve, I’m not sure how to go about sealing it back up

Removing the J Shelf

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 / daughterofafarmer / Leave a comment

Out with the J!!

I didn’t see a need to have this shelf, plus the big letter J was really throwing me off. Nothing would stay on the shelf while traveling, so a few screws later, it was gone! The top has a light in it, so that will stay. And I think the wood around the edges has a cool look to it

on a side note… pretty sure I had those glow in the dark stars in my bedroom as a kid lol Did anyone else have those?!

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Removing Curtains

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 / daughterofafarmer / Leave a comment

Here’s where the manual labor comes in! Ripping down all the curtains and trim to start painting is a lot of work! I’m starting to think I’ll have more time in prep work than putting it back together. It is mostly held together by staples, which requires a lot of pulling/tugging/prying. I want a fresh clean slate to work with, so I decided to pull all of the valances down as well. We also got a surprise visitor from Papa DoDo (my grandpa) he’s always curious about all the projects happening! And he’s an experienced camper owner, so he gets a lot of my questions thrown at him 🙂

A must have for every tool box:

Channellock long nose pliers (great for pulling out staples)

Prepping For Paint

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 / daughterofafarmer / 2 Comments

EDIT: I wrote this post while still pregnant with my daughter, who is now one year old 😉 shows how long it’s taken me to publish this site!

We got the camper over to the barn at my dad’s farm around Halloween time. The kids and I started cleaning the inside and taping the cabinets. Prepping for paint is a chore! Or at least when you’re 27 weeks pregnant… and have an almost two year old who likes to follow behind and pull the tape off.

I used a vinegar/water mix with some essential oils to mask the smell to wipe down the cabinets. They are surprisingly really clean. I didn’t want to use any harsh chemicals because I’m prego and my kids were helping. It seemed to do the trick!!

I decided I’m going to paint the fridge with chalkboard paint to be able to write on it 🙂 very excited for that!

I can’t wait to paint and get rid of the brown. Sooo much brown! And a lot of orange too. I mean look at these cabinets

I have decided to keep the latches.. although brown.. they really are nice because they keep the cabinets closed and the kids can’t get them open. win/win

I just have to take them all off. Not looking forward to that. But I got a pretty good game plan on what I’m going to paint and where while the kids were occupied watching Zootopia and eating Halloween candy

It’s SO dark in there! And did I mention brown.. lol! Okay I’ll stop with the brown comments because it really is true to the 80s mid century feel and I know that’s ‘in’ right now.. But not really my style! (but come on, how cute are these babes)

Daughter of a Farmer

Renovating Our Vintage Camper

Prepping for painting interior camper